French Assembly Passes Stablecoin Swap Tax by a Single Vote

By Elena Vasquez

France's National Assembly adopted, by a single vote, a budget amendment that would make swapping cryptocurrency for MiCA-regulated stablecoins a taxable sale from January 1, 2027, according to the Assembly's official voting record.

Only 100 deputies took part in the Friday vote: 38 backed amendment I-3898 to the 2027 budget, 37 opposed it and 25 abstained. With 75 votes cast, the measure sat exactly at the 38-vote majority threshold. A margin this thin offers no mandate for complacency; the amendment can still fall at any later stage.

What would actually change for holders?

Under current French practice, holders move between cryptocurrencies without triggering tax, provided no euros change hands. Tax falls due only when they cash out or spend. The amendment narrows that carve-out for one asset class: swaps ending in an electronic money token under MiCA, the EU's crypto rulebook covering stablecoins pegged to a single official currency.

From 2027, such swaps would count as sales. The taxable gain would be the value of the stablecoins received minus the price paid for the coins given up, charged under France's flat tax. That levy rose from 30% to 31.4% after the 2026 social security financing law lifted social charges on capital income from 17.2% to 18.6%.

The text also rewrites cost basis. Instead of one figure for the whole portfolio, each coin sold would carry its own purchase price, averaged where the same coin was bought more than once. For pre-2027 holdings, investors face a one-off, irrevocable choice: document the actual cost of each asset, or spread the portfolio's total cost across holdings as of December 31, 2026. In plain terms, every exit into a euro-pegged token becomes a reporting event.

Who pushed it, and who resisted?

The amendment's authors, led by Nicolas Sansu of the left-wing GDR group, argue that stablecoins can be "entirely conventional investment vehicles" and that gains moved into them escape the flat tax through "a hole in the legislation." They note the UK and Italy have already legislated along the same lines. Their framing is coherent; it also presumes enforcement capacity the government says does not yet exist.

The government opposed the measure. Public Accounts Minister David Amiel asked for its withdrawal, arguing that stablecoins first need a legal definition and that the state must be able to trace reallocations within portfolios, CoinDesk reported. That objection is operational, not ideological: without portfolio-level traceability, a per-asset cost basis is difficult to police.

How did the vote get here?

The path was not straightforward. The Assembly's finance committee had already backed Sansu's stablecoin amendment earlier this month, alongside his proposal extending France's exit tax to crypto held by households worth more than €800,000. The committee then rejected the budget's entire revenue section by 31 votes to 3, sending the floor debate back to the government's original text and forcing the stablecoin measure to be tabled again.

A separate committee amendment would require holders to declare self-custodied crypto worth €100,000 (about $112,000) or more at year-end, with fines up to €10,000 for failure. Crypto industry figures pushed back, arguing that collecting such data would endanger holders in a country that has suffered a string of crypto kidnappings, including the 2025 abduction and mutilation of Ledger co-founder David Balland. The concern is specific and documented; the Assembly has not addressed it.

What happens next?

None of these measures is law. The Assembly votes on the full revenue section on Tuesday, after which the budget passes to the Senate, where both the one-vote margin and the government's opposition leave the amendment exposed. Whether the provision survives that journey will determine whether France taxes stablecoin exits at all before the decade turns.